"Isn't He Dead Yet?"

When I was supervising call center employees at the company we called U. S. Worst, upper management was obsessed with cost control at any cost. As supervisors, we were expected to do anything and everything to reduce costs, including following employees into the bathroom to find out what was taking them so long. We advised our agents to answer with a one-syllable name to reduce call time. We had a light switch in the center of the room that each person would turn on and off when they went to the bathroom and returned, to ensure that only one person could be using the toilets at a time. The place was really obsessed with toilets and employees' bathroom habits.

I especially dreaded meeting with my boss to go over the reports of employee absence, illness, and disability. There was a long-term employee, a really nice guy, who had been living with HIV for a number of years. I'll never forget when my boss was scanning the disability reports, and when she got to this person's name, she said in an irritated tone of voice, "Isn't he dead yet?"